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Every week for the past year I’ve interviewed a successful woman: scientists, athletes, a rabbi, activists, an astronaut, authors and entrepreneurs. Each woman has a story; each one is different. But perhaps unsurprisingly, there are traits and characteristics that they have in common. It’s fascinating to learn from them, and now I get to share those lessons with you.

Here are 15 things 49 successful women have in common…Check it out here.

The Landlordette is here to bring you the very first, Those That Inspire: Woman in Real Estate feature! We have recently had the honor of speaking with Pamela J. Goodwin of Goodwin Commercial. The purpose of these articles is to help you learn about successful woman in the industry, how they got there, and what’s going on with them today. We hope you find this as inspiring as we did.

A little about Pamela J. Goodwin:

Pamela J. Goodwin grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. She came from an entrepreneurial family that owned a poultry business. As a child, she worked in the business. Her first memory of real estate came from her father who started started buying residential rental properties when she was in her early teens. After college, when she was in her late 20s, she bought her first rental. Her background was a degree in interior design and at that time she wanted to become a famous hotel designer. She started off designing office spaces in Omaha.

The first half of her career in real estate was on the landlord side for large shopping center developers. She focused on tenant coordination and project management. She later went on to the tenant side to work for Brinker International where she helped develop more than 50 pad sites from 2003-2006. 11 years ago she started Goodwin Commercial, a boutique commercial real estate and consulting firm specializing in developing retail and restaurant pad sites.

Now that your up to speed on Pamela’s background, let’s get into Q & A!

Landlordette: Would you recommend having a mentor? Who has been your biggest mentor?

Pamela J. Goodwin: Yes, I would highly recommend a mentor. When I left corporate I partnered with a mentor who had 40 years of experience in real estate. He was my mentor for my first 4 years in the business. Along the way I’ve always had mentors to help me. I believe you have to have someone who has gone through similar experiences before. You get to learn from their past mistakes which helps you avoid making the same costly mistakes.

Landlordette: How did you reach out to your mentor?

Pamela J. Goodwin: My mentor was someone I had known. We had done past projects together when I was on the corporate side. Once I was on my own I knew I wanted their guidance so I reached out.

You always have to reach out to the person you would like to aspire to be. Someone who’s above and beyond you at this moment and that you want to be. Don’t hesitate, reach out and ask them to be on your team. There will be a time when you get to pay it forward. With all the mentors I’ve had I am happy to help newer people in the industry who seek my advice. No matter where you are there is always someone above you and someone below you.

Landlordette: What does your daily/morning routine look like?

Pamela J.Goodwin: Typically, I get up 5:30am and skim over my email. I know they say this isn’t good but I like to know about anything urgent first thing. I then go over the top 3 things I want to accomplish that day. I focus on the 3 things that are going to be profitable first. I am a big believer in the power of social media. I then take 30 mins in the morning on my pages, LinkedIn specifically because I have found this works great for me. Typically in the afternoon I’ll do another post about something I’ve learned that day that I think will be beneficial to share. My other non negotiable is my workouts. I have to workout everyday to clear my head. I do yoga twice a week. I recently joined a new fitness concept, body machine fitness, that I am loving! I have actually started skipping my lunch so I can get there everyday. Lastly, on Friday’s I sets up meetings for coffee/lunch.

Landlordette: What’s happening in real estate?

Pamela J. Goodwin: We’re based in Texas, and corporate relocation is booming here which is great. I see the retail industry changing, retail has to be innovative and add new concepts. For example, Barnes and Noble just opened their new store with a kitchen concept. More than half of the square footage is kitchen/seating area. In general, we see retailers downsizing, doing more temporary stores. It looks like a full time store but it’s a lot more open. This allows them to move in and out easier. You hear a lot of people to talk about how online sales keep creeping up on brick and mortar retailers. No one realizes that online sales are still less than 8% of total sales. 92% of people are still going in stores. People crave that human interaction. The ability to talk face to face to someone and try things on. Retailers just need to make sure they are constantly innovating and they will be okay.

The restaurant industry is still doing well. What we see with restaurants is a demand for the delivery service. This is changing the look of the industry because we now see a lot of restaurants downsizing or having kitchen only. I specialize in finding locations for restaurants and am finding that more and more convenience is key for the buyers.

Landlordette: Here’s a fun one for you, if you could have an all expense paid vacation anywhere in the world where would you go and why?

Pamela J. Goodwin: So many great choices, my number one pick would be to go sailing on a boat around the 1,000+ islands around Croatia.

We had a great time talking with Pamela J. Goodwin and hope you enjoyed learning more. If there is anyone who inspires you that you think would make a great guest, let us know here!

Tis the Season of the Home Cooked Meal

What does this mean for you? Well as investors it means high plumbing bills if you’re not careful. Talking with a plumber we weren’t surprised at the amount of calls they get related to food/grease down the kitchen sink and into your pipes. The problem is many people, including your tenants, don’t know how big of an issue this is.

So, what really happens?

When you put the grease of your delicious holiday meal down the drain it has to go somewhere. Or so we think. However, our plumber explained to us that it actually cools, congeals, and clogs pipes. This leaves the water with nowhere to go. Hence those lovely pictures of backed up sinks we see from tenants.

So, what are best practices in this scenario?

After you cook our plumber recommends allowing the grease to cool and solidify in the pan itself. Once it’s cool you want to transport it to any sort of container with a lid. Making sure that you wipe down the pan before washing as there will likely be remnants. Then toss the container into the garbage. Pretty easy, right? For bonus points go ahead and compost any food scraps vs. using your garbage disposal as that gets into a whole other costly expense. Don’t forget that the tenant might not know these best practices. Explain to your tenants when they move in the importance of following the drain protocol. Around the holidays, send a reminder email to your tenants about these things! Finally, consider implementing a service fee to the tenant if the plumber must come out because of grease filled pipes.

More questions on best practices with your property? We’re here to help. Reach out!

Collecting rent is necessary to keep your real estate investment business thriving. However, it can be tricky for the most seasoned investors to execute properly. Here are the 5 most effective strategies we have found when it comes to collecting in a timely fashion:

Have a thorough screening process in place: Find tenants that have a pattern of timely payments. Verify not the credit score but instead the trade lines that display the monthly check mark year over year of consistent monthly payments.

Set up a strong reminder system: People need reminders & you need rent. It is worth sending that text/email and there are plenty of applications out there to automate this for you.

Offer flexibility: People need options. The more ways people can pay you. The likelier you are to get paid. There are options from Chase Quick Pay, Pay Near Me, and Venmo. Know the risks associated with each so you can set the parameters on the flexibility, so it still falls within the date and grace period as defined by the lease.

Offer a carrot & a stick program: People like incentives. Rewards for paying on time can be crucial to your success. Offer a rent reporting system to the credit bureau that you might contribute to after 12 timely payments.

Follow your legal system: Be proactive of advising tenant’s of protocol when payments aren’t made then enforce these rules if the time comes. The easiest way to make sure these situations don’t become a habit is staying on top of it right away.

These are just a brief description of the 5 most effective strategies to collecting rent. If you’d like a freecopy of the e-book, click here to request one!

What is it that you truly want? Do you truly know what your number one goal is? If you don’t, you’re not alone, but it’s an important piece of the puzzle. Take some time to decide what you are working towards and why. Then follow these guidelines to own your productivity and get one step closer to that number one goal!

I am often at REIA meetings and national conferences where we discuss the “hectic day” of the real estate world. Whether you are a property manager, investor, or agent you can relate to the feeling that there are not always enough hours in a day. What I have found throughout my experiences is that time is created equal. Time management skills are not. The most successful people you know, across all fields, have developed their own tips and tricks to win their day. Over the years I’ve learned from a lot of people and here are what I’ve found to be some of the most important productivity tips to streamline your day.

Tasks are calendar items. Schedule them or delegate them.

Too often people are writing to do lists only to lose them and forget what was on them. Half of the things that are on the list are in the calendar anyway but now you’ve created an extra stress on yourself trying to figure out which list is updated, and which isn’t. The bottom line here, don’t maintain multiple lists all they do is take time away from your day. Anything that can be written on a list can be put into your calendar. This includes workouts, time with your family, and reading a book. Google calendar, like many, is actually set up to differentiate between a calendar item and a to do item. Having it all in one place creates a peace of mind for you and allows you to see everything on your agenda in one place for the day, month year.

Use a stand-up desk….

Bonus points if you’re using a stand-up desk with a treadmill to walk as you work/read emails. You can start your day off with a killer morning routine, healthy breakfast, and even a great workout but if the second you get into your office you sit down for the next 8-12 hours you essentially are erasing the benefits of all that work you put in. Dramatic? Maybe not…studies have found that people who sit a lot every day have an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and early death. Additionally, sitting all the time burns very few calories, and many studies have linked it to weight gain and obesity. (Source)

The bottom line is you want to do everything to increase your odds of having a productive day. So don’t get stuck sitting. Stand and maintain that power position and you will be surprised how much better you feel after a few days.

Time limits on meetings and tasks

My project management background always comes back to this. Work expands to fill the time we allot it. When I was working with the software development team in NYC, we found the daily standup scrum meeting so beneficial that word spread, and it was adapted by operations and clients services. You would be very surprised that you can accomplish the same thing in a 15-minute or 30 minute meeting as you can one hour. Streamlined meetings reduce side conversations and keep everyone sharp and on topic. Setting yourself and your team a timeline requires everyone to be on the focused from start to finish. This premise should be used when it comes to tasks as well. Baseline a time per task and require that each person complete the task/project in that time, once trained of course. Most people don’t intentionally slack off. Our days are filled with distractions, if you and your team want to perform at your highest, start with an estimated duration expectation in every operation you perform.

Setup a morning routine

Everyone’s morning routine will be slightly different. The key is to have one. I recommend including these 6 power areas: Visualization, exercise, affirmation, writing, reading, and reflection. Keep it organized and tight. Try to do them in the same order every day to build a consistency with it. You may be thinking, that looks like a lot of stuff to get done. It’s really not. It requires you to get up at the very minimum 15 mins earlier each day. You can play around with the numbers and make it yours. If you especially like reading read for a few extra minutes and write for a little less. The most important part is doing it. Consistently.

Prioritize the priorities

The best way to reach your goals, no matter how big, is to do a little bit each day. Breaking down the goal is how you will reach it. When it comes to business set a priority task for the day, for your week, and create a timeline on how you are going to use this to reach your monthly project goals. Dividing your work up this way ensure that you and your team know exactly what needs to be focused on when. Going hand in hand with having your priorities straight is being able to stay on track. Consider implementing an inbox tool allowing you to delay the send time of an email to fit your schedule. Think that time you sent out a mass email only to be completely useless the rest of the day because you were stuck focusing on the replies. A scheduling tool lets you write the email, schedule conveniently and forget about it, knowing you can address that task at a later time.

No matter what your business is using productivity tips to streamline your day is the key to achieving great success and reaching your number one goal. Try out the ideas above and make them your own by tweaking what you need to. As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to us so we can help you on your journey to financial freedom!